Quick shot of part of the pits. They had another whole room as well off to the side. Check out everyone in T Shirts in the middle of winter! Love the Greenhouse!

Our new friend Marlene's Losi XXX. She could drive quite well and I think she was in the B Main! Her and her boyfriend Marco were super cool and helpful with some translation and a big thanks to them for getting Mikes busted allen tip out so he could fix a blown one way bearing in his BJ4WE. See you guys in Tillsonbourgh!

One of the few RB5 getting some launch time.

There were a few Losi's, mostly B4's here though

Another RB5 brother.More racing and roost action!Missed the TQ by under a second (crap). I was in second place and had a good start and there were good battles in the main for 1st place in the first couple of minutes then I had a a few bobbles (choked a bit? lol) and a hard charging Dave Ivicheic sneaked by when I rutt rolled at the end of the straight with 2 laps to go (double crap). You needed a clean run to win here as the top local guys are super consistent. The triple was my killer :( The track got rutted out and also dried out a bit by the mains and I made a last minute switch in tires to Bowties while everyone else kept their Step Pins. I don't think it was a bad choice though as half the track was still wet and half was dry so it was here nor there.

There were almost all B4's in the A Main aside from one Losi and my RB5.

Again, I put a little pressure on first for a bit then a crash in the triple was my undoing. I battled back, but made a few more mistakes (damn triple) while trying to push it hard to make up ground and well you just can't do that here and win. I got tangled with a back marker a couple of times, but Eric was gone by then. I used the Bowties front and back on my Lazer and thought that is was better than the Step Pins personally.

Thanks to the Circuit JC guys for having us down and putting on a good show! The racing was great and we all had fun. We'll be back next year!

Random thoughts:

- I was running 20 weight oil with the big 2 hole pistons in the rear of my RB5! Never thought I'd every see 20 wt oil in my car, but it was working well.

- There was no love in qualifying when it came to lapping traffic! The Quebecois are agressive drivers and you had to be careful when approaching lapped traffic. Being the unknowns here didn't help as we were stuck in the lower qualifiers and there was no re-sort till the next day.

- How we missed booking the hotel with the strip club attached to it I will never know...

- Jill the GPS voice is ingrained in my head from all this traveling to races.

- I should have paid more attention in my French Immersion classes. I think I did ok though. It was funny when someone would ask me a question in French and I would answer in English (I can still read and understand French, but my grammar when speaking is horrible)

- I couldn't believe how hot it got in there. You really could have worn shorts. Greenhouse tracks rule in the winter!

- Mikes Losi CR has no punch...haha

- Gino is gonna tear it up this summer....watch out!

- Circuit JC needs to step it up and run 7 or 10 minute A Mains!

- The JLap counting system was pretty cool. It called out the drivers names and spit out some funny random comments like "I hope you are enjoying the race" every now and then. It also had crazy starting music.

- Le Quebecois LOOOVE their Emjay (90's dance music singer). There was plenty of "UM CH UM CH UM CH" beats going on through out the day.

- TONS of guys there were running LiPo's from: http://rcbuy.vstore.ca/ . They are starting to make their way into Ontario and I thought I'd give him a shout out as he was a really cool guy! I still think my Team Orion packs are better though! :P (gotta say it right!)

- I hope some of these guys make it out to www.sidsraceway.com this summer for some racing action.

- We would have loved to stick around for the awards ceremony, but with a 4 hour drive home we needed to get on the road. We got home at a respectable 11:00pm.

- Mike beat Steve's previous TQ run of 168km/h with a blistering 178km/h in the Subaru. I pussied out at around 150km/h...not because of the speed, but because I like my current insurance rate of $83 a month and would like to keep it.

- One last Mikeism: I was killing myself laughing at Swiss chalet on the way home when he was complaining to the waitress that there was no hot water in the bathroom when he was washing his hands (I had hot water though for some reason). No Club Soda though with his chicken.... :P

Saturday, February 23, 2008

My dog "Poker" was not too impressed with me waking him up at 2:30am...

Packed light for this one....

This was worth it's weight in gold this morning...nice latte to get the morning going.

So the gong show started at 2:30am as I snuck out of my house to play with toy cars. Started my car and one headlight blew out....nice. Picked up Gino and then off to Mike's. We were on the road at about 4 am. Took 4 hours to get here. This track is in the middle of nowhere! The track is pretty good. The dirt is sweet. Lots of loamy traction. Step pins and Bowties seem to work well. The people are all very nice although the racing is a little more grassroots out here. There are some fast guys though and competition is tight! We had 3 rounds of qualifying today and I am sitting in the top 3 for both 2wd and 4wd. Mike and Gino are in the mix as well. The greenhouse thing is crazy. You could wear shorts in there it is that warm. I was down to a t shirt as it was actually hot in there mid day. So we got out around 6:30 and it was getting dark so of course my remaining headlight blows out and we are drving with either my high beams or just the fog lights...lol. No auto stores anwhere so I will have to search tomorrow in between racing. Pics will be uploaded later. I will try and shoot some video of the roost action as well.

Mike while not knowing any french and with a pizza employee that doesn't speak any english are funny to watch as he nit picks about his sandwich order trying to find out if they have whole wheat bread or not...LOL...Gino and I kept it simple and just ate off the rack pizza....No club soda was ordered though, so that is a plus!

Edit:"High End" baby!

Yes folks, that is REAL velvet with the extra touch of the mirror surround on the bedside table....They just don't make 'em like that anymore.....

Some of the fine art around the room. I guess we got the Jungle Suite!

70's table lamp...very nice.

Mike thought that we might have a "Boutique" motel being in a small town. I told him "Boutique" and small boonie Quebec town are not to be used in the same sentence and well this was our room. LOL. I forgot to take a picture of the light switch for the bathroom that was actually in the shower. Nice and safe! Whatever though, it was only one night.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

So we are at it again this weekend. This time "Speed Demon" Steve will be replaced by up and coming racer Gino. Mike, Gino and myself will pack up the Subaru once again and head off to "La Belle Province" to mix it up at the Quebec Off Road Championships. It's about a 4 hour drive (why are all these tracks 4 hours away from me?), but it is in a converted greenhouse so the dirt should be moist (when was the last time you used Step Pin tires?) and it should be warm in there for a change. Really wanted to head down to NY and hit up Glenwood RC's Trophy Race, but we have never been to Circuit JC and I hear good things about it so we at least have to check it out once. It will give me a chance to polish up on my french as well. Tabernac! I'll get some pics and videos up as soon as I can. Let's get it on!

What's new on my end? The RB5 is back to "old faithful" set up wise. This was one I came up with last summer and seems to work good on bumpy tracks. I am officially dumping the Rear Middle Arm Conversion thingy as I still don't like the way it handles with it. But at least all my rear arms will match now between the 2wd and 4wd! I will also try a new set up on the Lazer SP just for something to do.

Random Thought: I hope my new bodies are done at The Bawdy Shop. My RB5 body had taken it's lumps at the last two races in the USA.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

It was Dakota Phends birthday (9th or 10th or something) and there were probably 150 yummy cupcakes that were dished out on Saturday. Dakota rode his sugar high to a win in the 4wd Modified A Main Class(!). Phenom Phends was cool and collected out there for such a young racer! Polite kid too.

My RB5. I tried the rear middle kit again and again I did not like it. Broke a rear arm and then I switched back to the stock rear end and the car felt a lot better. So I have a free rear middle arm left if someone wants one for a spare!Action shot by Jason Kussner. Thanks!

Another shot from Jason.

There were a fair amount of Kyosho boys at the race! Thanks to the guys for the extra steering racks....funny, I was laughing on RC Tech at all the guys busting racks as I have never broke one (I've been running the car since last May too), then I come here and snap two of them (although they were not my fault as I got smoked by flying cars in the big triple jump in practice).

There were people EVERYWHERE! Total of 220 racers (I think they were expecting around 140...). It was tight, but everyone was pretty cool.

The Big Kahuna Memorial Lap. Never knew him, but it looked like he was well liked and missed.

Random nonsense...I was going to actually make a video of the trip with some production value but I didn't get enough footage. Maybe this spring!

"Watch the Triple" Part II. Americans and their crazy jumps!

I youtube'd the 2wd A Main here:

So another road trip but this time to Michigan to check out Al Horne's new indoor track and race the Big Kahuna Shootout. Skipped out of work early and Mike, "Speed Demon" Steve and I were once again off to play with our toy cars. Took us just under 4 hours to get there (no speeding tickets this time as I drove the whole way down). Good thing we arrived for Friday practice as they ended up having 220 entries (one of the biggest electric off road races in North America now!) and pit space was tight. We had some minor breaker popping problems but they got sorted out pretty quick. They brought in some new dirt recently (I was looking forward to running a tire with pins again) which made it a slick tire track. Back to the CRCRC set up...lol. My cars were running pretty good but I still am not used to the slick tire/clay track driving. Saturday had morning practice and the racing kicked off at noon. 2wd qualifying was rough and I didn't really get a good run in either. 4wd I was running better (first time that has ever happened to me). with 220 entries three rounds of qualifying and mains it was going to be a crazy long day. They put it to a vote and we opted to just use the 2 rounds and go right into the mains to save time. I would have liked a third round to qualify better, but I wanted to get home before daylight the next day so I voted for two rounds. This landed me 5th in the C Main in 2wd (uhg) and 5th in the A Main in 4wd (again, first time I have even been better in 4wd). The 2wd main was sort of like my race at CRCRC. I weaved my way into first (jumping the triple jump every lap) but things for me got loose and I could not make the triple consistantly and had a few crashes that put me down into 2nd. A few more bobbles let first place check out and it was pretty much a cruise for 2nd place. In 4wd I got up to 3rd I think for a little and then was battling for 4th with Mike for a bit then slotted into 5th place for the remainder of the race. I need to find the secret of keeping rear end traction late in the day on these clay tracks as my cars were pretty loose come the mains. We packed up quick as it was already about midnight and we had a 4 hour drive home still. Sorry we couldn't stick around for the awards.

I would like to thank:

- Al Horne and the Factory Tracks crew for the hospitality. The facility was really nice and everyone there was great! Can't wait to hit up the outdoor series!- The Kyosho boys for helping me out with the steering rack parts! (e-mail me your addresses and I'll get them replaced for you!)- Steve and Mike for driving home (I got to sleep the whole way home!)- Canada Customs again for the hassle free re-entry- My wife for not changing the lock again :P

Random Comments:

- Chucks car was DIALED.- There was a Losi guy who ran truck tires on the back of his CR for the main...looked funny as hell. He then proceeds to do perfect back flips over the triple. The crowd went wild!- Dakota is a fast little dude- I won't jinx myself by laughing at people on the net who broke steering racks..Karma is a bitch! HAHA.- Mike did not have one club soda (with lime) this entire trip NOR did he spill the tire water bucket!